Rendlesham Forest encounter - my grandfather's account

This is going to sound mad, but I've been sitting on this for years and thought the forum might appreciate it. My grandfather was stationed at RAF Bentwaters in December 1980 when the Rendlesham Forest incident happened.

He was never part of the official investigation, but he was there during the nights it occurred. Before he died last year, he told me his account of what happened - not the official story, but what he actually witnessed. I've got his handwritten notes from the time and I've been trying to decide whether to share.

The basic facts you probably know: strange lights in the forest, military personnel investigating, some kind of craft allegedly recovered. The official story changed about 47 times depending on who was telling it.

My grandfather's version: They definitely saw something. He couldn't describe it properly because 'it didn't move like anything he'd ever seen, and it didn't make sounds in the normal way'. His exact words were that it felt 'deliberate' - like it wanted to be seen. He also mentioned a brief period where watches stopped, which aligns with other accounts. But here's the bit no one talks about - he said some of the people who had direct contact showed signs of what he described as 'acute psychological trauma' for months afterwards. Not normal scared, but something deeper.

He never wanted his name attached to this because military careers, pension, all that. But he's gone now, so I thought I'd share it anonymously. Has anyone else got family connections to major paranormal incidents?

This is fascinating and honestly more credible than most Rendlesham accounts because you're being honest about what he did and didn't know. The psychological trauma angle is interesting - there's not much discussion of that in the usual retellings. People focus on the craft itself and kind of ignore the fact that whatever happened clearly affected the witnesses deeply.

Would you be comfortable sharing the handwritten notes? Obviously not with identifying information, but the actual account? This forum has handled sensitive material responsibly before.

like it wanted to be seen

This is the detail that actually interests me most. If it was a genuine craft doing reconnaissance, would it deliberately make itself obvious? Or would it try to hide? The 'deliberate' aspect suggests either intelligence operating by completely different principles, or someone/something that wanted to be documented. That's either profound or terrifying depending on your perspective.

The watches stopping thing is mentioned in multiple accounts so that's probably real, not something added in storytelling. Electromagnetic interference from an unknown source would do that. The psychological trauma could be straightforward fear response, or it could indicate something like radiation exposure or psychological manipulation. Would need actual medical records to know.

My dad was RAF too (different era, different base) but he never mentioned anything paranormal. Though he was tight-lipped about classified stuff, so who knows. The thing about military witnesses is they're usually credible - they're trained observers, they understand chain of command, they're not attention-seekers. When military people report something they saw, it's worth taking seriously.

Rendlesham is properly interesting because it's not just a UFO sighting - there's military documentation, multiple credible witnesses, and it's never been adequately explained. Even the skeptics have to admit something happened. Your grandfather's account about the psychological aftermath is significant because trauma responses don't usually lie. If people were traumatised, something genuinely unusual definitely occurred.